Goodreads asked Alyssa Everett:

How do you get inspired to write?

Alyssa Everett I tend to find inspiration in characters, so often I'll have an idea while I'm reading a book or watching a movie and I wonder what the story would have been like if the characters lived in another time period, or were faced with a different dilemma, or had made a different choice along the way. For example, years ago I saw an old melodrama with James Mason called "The Seventh Veil" in which he plays a bitter, brooding, repressed character, though the reason for his unhappiness is only hinted at (a terrible relationship with his mother). That story was mostly about the heroine, a concert pianist, and Mason's character went beyond fascinatingly moody, to the point of violence. Still, James Mason was so compelling he made me want to write a story that was more hero-centric, in which the hero has the same kind of aloof, complicated personality (minus the cruelty), and the story explores the reasons he's so tortured and difficult to understand. I ended up writing "Lord of Secrets," so that's one example of how coming across an interesting character can inspire a very different kind of story.

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